


when is a monster not a monster

by ObscureReference



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Cannibalism, Established Relationship, F/F, Horror, Hospitals, Major Character Injury, Mild Memory Loss, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Vomiting, Zombie Cannibalism, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-16 15:30:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18097079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObscureReference/pseuds/ObscureReference
Summary: When it was over, she wiped her mouth with the back of her arm and grimaced. The taste was terrible. And—she glanced down—some of it had gotten on her shirt too.Except it wasn’t a shirt she was wearing. It was a hospital gown.Severa stared at her clothes dumbly for a moment. Nothing clicked into place.





	when is a monster not a monster

**Author's Note:**

> A friend said "Hey, you should write another horror fic," and I'm constantly looking for an excuse to write anything spooky, so I wrote this. It took me two weeks, and I struggled a lot with finding a plot. I'll tag my inspiration below to avoid spoilers here at the top.
> 
> This fic is a little more bloody than my usual horror, I think, and I'm not sure if I like that or not. I tend to shy away from unnecessary gore imagery for gore's sake, so I think it's pretty tame here (with maybe one or two exceptions for plot reasons). But this is a zombie fic, so when a zombie is seen, the fact they're a dead person is described. Not in supreme detail (in my opinion) but at least a mild to medium detail, depending on your tastes. It's zombies, so. You know. Be aware. If you're not a fan, I'll try to go back to my traditional spooks next horror fic. Thanks for reading this one, whether you end up liking it or not. It's appreciated.
> 
> Trigger Warnings are explained more in depth in the end notes, so scroll down there if you want to be warned of what you'll see before you read. Beware of MAJOR SPOILERS, however! Better to click out of this fic and not read if you're unsure.

Eyelids heavy and mouth full of cotton, Severa squinted up at the sun. The light was much too bright.

She shut her eyes again and, with what felt like much too much effort for a task so small, rolled over.

Her body met open air.

She hit the floor with a crash and no shortage of pain. Disoriented, she pushed herself onto her hands and knees only for an intense wave of nausea to slam into her before she was halfway to her feet. Severa was promptly sick.

When it was over, she wiped her mouth with the back of her arm and grimaced. The taste was terrible. And—she glanced down—some of it had gotten on her shirt too.

Except it wasn’t a shirt she was wearing. It was a hospital gown.

Severa stared at her clothes dumbly for a moment. Nothing clicked into place.

With weak and shaking hands, she reached up and grabbed onto the edge of a table.

It was the edge of an _operating_ table, she realized, pulling herself to her feet.

And the sun hadn’t been beating down on her at all. She’d been looking at a large lamp suspended above the operating table instead.

Severa’s legs shook. She turned around and all but collapsed onto the table. Again, her stomach gurgled dangerously. Her limbs were heavy as anchors, but thankfully the heaviness was beginning to fade. The more she moved, the better her body felt, even if her nauseous stomach begged to differ.

It wasn’t like she could make a bigger mess than she already had at this point, so Severa leaned over and spat onto the floor to get some of the taste out of her mouth. She grimaced and sat back up, ignoring the way her head swam at the movement.

What the hell was she doing here?

Logically, the answer was obvious. But Severa was damned if she couldn’t remember why.

 _Okay_ , she thought. Taking a moment, she tried to make sense of it all.

Why did she feel so sick?

Obviously, she was in a surgical room. Presumably in some sort of hospital. And generally when people who _weren’t_ doctors were present in surgical rooms, they were under the influence of anesthesia.

Severa curled her fingers into loose fists. The movement was a little easier than it had been a minute before, but she still wasn't feeling her best.

Right. Anesthesia felt like a good guess.

She closed her eyes and breathed out, trying to keep her head from spinning. Residual medicine in her system would definitely have explained why she felt so exhausted and nauseous. Whether it was standard anesthesia or not, it was still working its way through her. Once it did, she hoped that she’d remember a few more details about what she was doing here.

Encouraged by that chain of thought, she swallowed dryly and kept thinking.

Clearly, she’d been meant to have surgery, even if she couldn’t remember _why_ just yet. So had she woken up early then? If Severa had actually undergone some kind of surgery, shouldn’t she have woken up in a recovery room and not on the actual surgical table? Every television drama she’d ever seen had certainly painted the process that way. So chances were nothing had actually happened yet.

At the very least, she hadn’t woken up _during_ the surgery. An obvious plus.

Which lead to a much more pressing question:

Where were the doctors?

Severa opened her eyes and craned her neck, but nobody wearing scrubs jumped out from behind the offline heart monitor or unused IV pole. There wasn’t anywhere to hide in the room. It was a bare and sterile space, not a fun house. She was well and truly alone.

Though there were a few other anomalies, besides herself. Looking around for the first time, Severa noted some surgical tools—scalpels, scissors, gauze and the like—poking out from under an upturned metal tray on the floor. She blinked heavily. Obviously somebody had rushed out in a hurry.

And left her behind? She frowned. And then frowned even harder at the upturned tray.

Because even without picking it up, she could see a few of the tools looked looked dirty. Had they been used?

No, they couldn’t have been. Severa was awake and moving just fine, despite her churning stomach. Which meant either nobody had cleaned up after the _last_ surgery or that somebody had an accident while prepping for Severa's. Both were concerning thoughts. 

But she didn’t exactly want to go digging through biohazardous materials with her bare hands and there wasn’t much she could figure out on her own without some more clues, so she let it go for now.

Severa scanned the walls for a two-way mirror or hidden cameras—anything that would have given her a hint as to what was going on. But for all intents and purposes, she was alone in what seemed to be a normal operation room.

Awake. As the patient.

Without any doctors.

The exact opposite of normal.

“Hello?” Her voice came out more raspy than she’d expected. Severa coughed and tried again. “Hello? Is anybody there?”

Again, nobody jumped out to tell her what the hell was going on. Clearly on her own for now, she took quick stock of herself next.

Her limbs still felt heavy, but the numbness was fading surprisingly fast. In a few minutes, Severa didn’t doubt she could get up and walk on her own. Especially if the nausea in her stomach kept fading like it was. She still didn’t feel comfortable, per say, but she was getting there. She just needed a minute.

The hospital gown she wore wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t already thrown up on it. She grimaced and looked past it. The sooner she found some real clothes, the better.

Oh, and shoes, apparently.

Severa flexed her toes.

She was barefoot. Because of course she was.

After maybe fifteen minutes of sitting on the table in utter boredom and failing to figure out anything new, Severa finally felt strong enough to stand.

Careful to avoid the vomit on the floor or any of the upturned junk, she climbed off the table. Some of her hair—loose, lacking her signature pigtails—brushed against her bare arms. She needed to fix that too.

The moment her feet touched the floor, her legs wobbled, still weak. Severa gritted her teeth.

The first step was hard but didn’t send her reeling back with dizziness. The second step was a bit easier.

By the time she reached the door, she felt almost normal.

Then the lights flickered overhead, reminding her that she was actually in some kind of strange hell. Thankfully, they stayed on. Their brief flickering didn’t do much for Severa’s sense of unease, however.

When she opened the door, she found the hallway surprisingly dark. With one hand resting on the door frame, she looked in both ways down the hall. The overhead lights were out as far as she could see, and only a few dim emergency lights lining either side of the floor illuminated the hallway at all. They were green and didn’t do nearly as much as Severa thought they should have.

Even with the emergency lights, she had to a wait several moments for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Light spilled out from the operation room behind her, lighting Severa from behind and casting her long shadow into the hallway. Her shadow bled into the darkness of the hall, nearly indistinguishable from the other shadows on the floor. It was all unfamiliar—the hallway and her shadow both.

At the very least now she could confirm that she was actually in a hospital.

At least, it _looked_ like a hospital.

Severa’s sense of unease was quickly overpowering any lingering sickness in her stomach.

“Hello?” she called out. Her voice did not echo, but it felt like it should have.

Nobody popped out of any of the rooms to greet her. The hallway remained empty.

Hairs rose on the back of Severa’s arms in the silence. She stepped further into the hall and nearly panicked when the operating room door swung shut behind her, snuffing out the light.

The _slam_ of Severa’s own palm against the door rang in her ears.

She stood there for a moment, eyes wide, until she felt calm enough to move again. Her eyes adjusted further to the dark.

Slowly, she let go of the door.

It swung shut.

The hallway was still bathed in darkness, but Severa realized it wasn’t unbearable. The emergency lights were dim, but they were still light. She could make out the shapes and shadows of doors farther down the hall, the curved counter of what must have been a nurses’ station even farther away. She could do this.

It would have been much more bearable and way less creepy if she wasn’t alone, but Severa would work with what she had.

She took another step into the hall, choosing a direction at random, and felt the edge of her hospital gown brush her shins. The tile chilled her bare toes. Severa wrapped her arms around herself. She knew hospitals were always supposed to be cold, but still, this was ridiculous. Her gown did next to nothing to trap heat.

Real clothes were definitely a top priority.

“Is anybody here?”

Again, there was no answer.

Something was terribly wrong. It wasn’t a surprising thought. Severa had known something was wrong since the moment she’d woken up. But the fact she couldn’t see or hear anyone else, the fact the lights were out, the fact that what should have been a bustling hospital appeared utterly _empty_ —

It all reinforced the fact that something was terribly, _horribly_ wrong.

She called out louder, “ _Hello_?”

Severa would have been more annoyed if she hadn’t felt so sick with fear and leftover anesthesia.

At least, she blamed it on the anesthesia.

Assuming she'd been given normal medicine at all.

Gods, she hoped this was a nightmare.

Despite the arms she had wrapped around herself, Severa shivered.

If she stopped and squinted for long enough, she could read the little plastic plaques next to every door. The doors nearest Severa all had names like _Operation Room #1_ and _Operation Room #3_. She suspected those rooms would look a lot like the ones she had woken up in, so there was no point in going in there. But the doors further down the hall might have been labeled something different.

She was mentally debating the merits of checking out the other rooms first versus finding the exit as soon as possible when she stepped in something slick and cold. Gravity reversed. Her teeth clacked together painfully as she landed face down on the tile.

Instantly, something wet began to seep into the front of her hospital gown. Her hands took the brunt of the fall, but it was Severa’s left wrist that throbbed with pain when she pushed herself up and looked at the dark floor.

She couldn’t tell what she had landed in. Under the weak green tinge of the emergency lights, it looked black.

“Ew, what the hell?”

Scrambling to her feet, Severa hastily wiped her palms on the front of her gown. Even after her hands were mostly clean, her palms still felt sticky with residual goo. Her right foot was in much the same shape. She could barely stand to look down at herself.

 _“Gross,”_ she hissed, moving around the puddle.

There was no telling what the puddle was made of without a better light source, but Severa resolved not to look even if she did find one. She wanted to get the hell out of the hospital and take a long bath. She _definitely_ didn’t want to think about anything too hard just yet.

 _New priority_ , she thought. _Find a shower._

Severa made her way down the hall a little faster this time, careful to keep an eye out for more suspicious stains on the floor.

“Earth to anyone out there!” she called, annoyance overtaking her earlier fear. The total silence was becoming more frustrating than scary, even if the atmosphere of the hallway still screamed _unnatural_. “This place is disgusting! If you work here, you should be ashamed to call yourself a medical professional! You hear me?”

She turned the corner. The next hallway was just as dark as the last.

 _How big is this place?_ she thought hotly. The building was probably standard hospital sized, but lacking company, a map, or a clue as to what was happening, the halls felt longer than they should have.

Out loud, she said, “Is anybody else here? Did you all just abandon ship and leave me behind or what? I’m going to sue the hell out of this place if—”

A sound—some kind of wet gurgle—shut her up. Severa stopped walking immediately, ears perked up.

The sound came again, this time accompanied with the shuffling of footsteps. Her gaze zeroed in on the space only a few feet ahead where her hallway intersected with another. She imagined the halls connecting in an H shape, linking one stretch of hospital rooms with another opposite it.

More pressingly, however—

“I—” Severa’s breath caught in her throat. “Is somebody there?”

She pretended not to notice how weak her voice had become.

The shuffling grew closer.

An instinctual part of Severa told her to turn away, to run back where she’d come from and hide. That something wasn’t _right_.

With some effort, she told that part of her to shut up. Because _obviously_ something was wrong. But she needed to find people, to figure out what was going on. So what if the person coming down the hall hadn’t said anything yet? What if they were hurt and couldn’t speak? There were a dozen reasons to stay where she was first rather than hide.

So Severa remained rooted firmly to her spot, waiting.

She forced her arms back to her side, curling her hands into fists. “Are you hurt or something? Do you know why the lights are out?”

A person turned the corner.

For a moment—just for a moment—Severa relaxed.

Then her breath caught.

Because the person who rounded the corner wasn’t a person at all. Not a living one, anyway.

He was taller than Severa, and his hair was dark. He looked like any random person she could have passed on the street without thinking twice.

But even under the sickly emergency lights, she could see his skin was too gray, his eyes too cloudy to be normal. His head rolled when he walked like he didn’t have the energy to lift it. When he finally picked his head up to look at her, Severa could see the way his jaw rolled, muscles unnaturally slack. Something red and only partly dried had been smeared around his thin lips. It had dripped down his chin and onto his shirt, which was covered in a myriad of other dark stains that reminded Severa too much of her own outfit.

The dark hole in the man's temple made Severa gag when she spotted it. It looked like someone had taken a rock and bashed in the man’s skull on one side. The barest hint of white peaked out between the pink and red surrounding the hole.

Severa stumbled back, eyes wide and shaking. Her heart should have been pounding away in her chest, but Severa had become so chilled with fear that she could barely register anything at all.

“What’s _wrong_ with you?” she snapped. In a last ditch effort to keep from jumping to conclusions, she said, “Stay back until I can trust you! Just—stay there if you need help!”

The man—the _zombie_ —did not stop. He shuffled forward, mouth open. Another wet gurgle escaped his throat.

That was the last straw. Severa spun on her heel, shooting back down the hall the way she’d came. The zombie was slower than her by far, but she wasn’t taking any chances. She shot back around the corner and shoved her way through the first door she saw, realizing too late how terrible of an idea that was.

Thankfully, there was not another zombie waiting for her in the room.

Not so thankfully, it turned out she had found her way into a closet. A dead end.

A spacious closet, to be sure. There were a lot of needles wrapped in plastic and unopened boxes with labels she didn’t have time to read lining the walls. Bedpans and other utensils she didn't immediately recognize sat on the shelves, but none of them would save her

Until she saw the crutch.

There was just one. It had been leaned against the shelf like someone had placed it there while searching for something and then promptly forgot it on the way out. Severa scrabbled for it immediately, wrapping her fingers around the cool metal.

She gripped the crutch around the middle and swirled back towards the door, preparing to swing. She was ready to use the top of the crutch—the wide end that normally would have gone under a person’s armpit—as a weapon.

A rather lightweight weapon to be sure. The crutch wasn’t the best item to beat a person to second death with, no matter how hard Severa swung. But in a pinch like now, it would keep some distance between her and that—that _thing_ outside, and she could figure it out from there.

Sweat dripped down the back of her neck. She flexed her fingers around the metal and swallowed dryly.

The closet door didn’t have a lock, because of course it didn’t. All Severa could do was wait.

And wait.

And wait.

It was a slow zombie. Hysterical laughter nearly bubbled up through Severa’s throat at the ridiculousness of her situation before she finally heard the familiar shuffle of dead feet outside the door.

Shaking, she raised the crutch overhead. She watched the doorknob carefully, waiting for the first turn of the knob.

 _Can zombies even open doors?_ she thought, panicked. It was such a stupid thought, but there was nothing funny about it now.

The door didn’t open.

The zombie shuffled by.

Severa stood there, sure it was a trick. She waited for the dead man outside to throw himself against her meager barricade, moaning in hunger for her scrumptious flesh. Minutes ticked by. The dead silence grew thicker by the second.

Eventually, against every screaming nerve in her body, Severa lowered the crutch.

She breathed in. Her hands still shook.

It took even longer for her to work up the courage to press her ear against the door and listen for anyone lurking outside, but when she did, she found only silence greeted her still. Eventually, Severa steeled herself and opened the closet door the barest sliver.

The hinges squeaked after the first inch. She froze.

The hallway remained barren and bathed in green.

Wherever the zombie had gone, it hadn’t returned yet.

She couldn’t cower in a closet forever. Now was her chance.

Severa pressed her back against the door and pushed it open some more, keeping the crutch in her hand. But she was too clumsy. The rubber nub at the end of the crutch knocked much too loudly against the door frame when she tried to turn.

She didn’t wait to see if the zombie heard _that_. Knuckles white with tension, Severa grasped her makeshift weapon and rushed back into the hallway where she had met the zombie, hoping beyond hope that no “friends” had come to join it. Gods, she’d been yelling up a storm earlier. How many creatures had started searching for her before that one had found her? Were they still looking?

The smack of her bare feet against the tile was too loud, and Severa forced herself to stop running after only a few yards. Her head was buzzing and she wanted to puke again, but those were all secondary concerns. She bent over and put a hand on her own knee for support, chest heaving. Her body was still exhausted from waking up on that operating table.

She couldn’t tire herself out unnecessarily, she thought. She couldn’t make too much noise. Severa had to be _smart_ about this.

 _Hysterical people die_ , she told herself. She was better than this, no matter what her dizzy mind was screaming her.

She needed options. She needed to get a hold on her surroundings.

So despite every nerve in her body demanding that she promptly freak the fuck out, Severa crept past the H intersection of the hall. There were scattered papers and other things laying in the hall the zombie had stumbled out of. Severa decided to ignore those things until she had explored the first hallway well enough. She had to move linearly.

Her eyes scanned every door she passed, not pausing to take the extra few seconds to read each plaque this time. All the doors looked the same.

She kept her ears strained for any more shuffling, any more gurgles that would have indicated something awful headed her way, but all was quiet.

“Exit,” Severa whispered under her own breath, just barely audible, because she ached to feel not so alone. “Where would the exit be?”

She would even have taken a window to jump out of at this point, but Severa had the sinking feeling she was deep in the heart of the hospital. She scanned the halls for signs of a lobby, a sign-in desk, any sort of area where patients could come and go easily. But all the hallways looked the same no matter which way she turned her head. An awful voice in her head told her that she was not on the ground floor at all.

That voice was proven correct when she reached the end of the hall and found herself looking at a metal door unlike any of the other doors she had passed so fair. When Severa squinted, she saw that the sign next to it read _Stairs_ in thin lettering.

Stairs. Not quite an exit. But a good start.

 _Second floor,_ Severa mentally chanted, grabbing the door handle. _Second floor, second floor, second floor._

The door opened.

A large, white number four stared back at Severa from the opposite wall. Her shoulders fell.

She was on the fourth floor.

That realization sent Severa hissing with frustration, but it didn’t last long. Even if she wasn’t technically speaking aloud, she had to be _quiet_. She felt foolish for whispering earlier, knowing what she did now.

She shot a quick look up and down the hallway behind her, double checking it was empty, and then peered down into the stairwell once more.

Somehow, the emergency lights lining the stairwell seemed even dimmer than the ones in the main hallway. Though, admittedly, that might have been Severa’s frustration speaking for her. The stairwell lights were shaded the same green that Severa was quickly growing to hate.

A lot of stairs separated Severa from the bottom floor. Too many. They held a lot of unknowns. She couldn’t see all the way down. Even with the emergency floor lights, the higher stairs hid a lot of the lower ones from view. What if the doors leading to the lower levels were blocked off? Would Severa tire herself out trying to make it back to the fourth floor? Would some monster trap her between a locked door and the only way out?

Her thoughts swirled with possibility. What if there was another zombie waiting for her just out of sight? What if there was something _worse_?

But none of that changed the fact that she was on the fourth floor. She couldn’t exactly jump out of a window from this high up, even if she found one. The second floor, maybe. But not the fourth.

She knew better than to take the elevator in a situation like this too, even if she found one. Who knew what would be waiting for her when the doors opened? At least on the stairs she had _some_ control.

Still, Severa hesitated. A voice in her head told her to look right.

It took a moment to read the sign on the door next to her. When she realized what it said, Severa was pleasantly surprised.

 _Women’s Changing Room_.

Perfect.

She closed the stairwell door as quietly as she could before carefully pushing open the door to the changing room. No undead monster immediately jumped out behind the shadowy lockers that sat in the center of the room, but that didn’t mean much. Severa tiptoed in quietly, this time making sure not to knock her crutch on the wall as she entered.

It wasn’t a very large room. She rounded the lockers, searching for any sign of danger, but even before she completed her search, she knew she was alone. There air in the changing room felt different than the oppressive atmosphere of the hall.

A full-length mirror hung in the corner. Severa squeaked in surprise when she saw it. Her cheeks heated with embarrassment as she realized the monster in the reflection was just her.

She looked _bad_.

Face pale and loose hair hanging down her back like string, Severa looked like some kind of dress-up doll that a child had abandoned in the mud. Especially with how disgusting her gown had become. Her vomit and whatever she had fallen in earlier had begun to dry by this point, but she could still feel how the cloth stuck to her skin unpleasantly. It clung to her chest especially. Probably because it had taken the brunt of the fall earlier. Gross.

Taking a shower was still off the table for a multitude of reasons, however. So Severa would just have to make due with a new change of clothes—assuming she could find any.

Once she double checked that she was truly alone and locked the door behind her—because _this_ room had a lock, apparently, thank goodness—she started opening lockers in search of clothes.

The first four lockers she tried were sealed tight. Severa mentally debated figuring out a way to pry them open before deciding that would be too noisy and pointless. She moved on.

The fifth locker was unlocked. Severa mentally cheered before realizing it was empty.

Scowling, she shut the door a bit too roughly and moved on.

The next open locker she found wasn’t empty, but the clothes inside were much too small. Severa was a thin woman, but she had height. Whoever these clothes belong to, they must have been half of Severa’s size.

Finally, just as she was starting to doubt that she’d ever be able to get out of her dirty gown, Severa found a locker with clothes that looked like they might have fit.

She set the crutch aside and held them up. The shirt would be a bit too baggy for Severa’s normal style, and the pants were perhaps a tad too short. Her ankles would show for sure. But they were clean, and that was all Severa needed. Beggars couldn’t be choosers. Not during the end of the world.

She really, really hoped it wasn’t the end of the world.

There weren’t any socks waiting for her at the bottom of the locker, sadly, but there were a pair of well-worn sneakers ripe for the taking. The shoes had turned off-white with age. Maybe they had served as a pair of backup shoes for a conscientious nurse or doctor once upon a time, but they were Severa’s now.

The whole outfit reminded her of something a middle-aged mom would wear to the grocery store. Severa tried very hard not to think about where the owner of these clothes was now.

She gathered everything up and moved over to the mirror. There was no point in not making use of it while she could.

Through some luck, she also found a hairband laying forgotten on a bench. Severa quickly tied her hair up in a loose ponytail, relieved that she didn’t have to spit stray hairs out of her mouth anymore when she ran. Then she pulled her arms through the gown and wriggled out of it as quickly as she could without touching the stains. She would have killed for a bottle of water to drink and wash over her hands and face too.

The hospital gown fell to the floor, discarded.

Severa looked at herself in the mirror and stared.

* * *

Camilla stifled the urge to call out Severa’s name again.

Because there were actual undead lurking nearby. Because she had already wasted hours popping in and out of room after room searching for Severa. Because her throat ached, and she needed water. Because it would have been foolish to call more attention to herself when it was just as likely to be bad attention as good. Camilla didn’t call out for Severa for a lot of reasons.

That didn’t mean she was going to stop looking though.

No. Come hell or high water, until she found Severa dead or alive, Camilla was not going to stop searching for her girlfriend.

And if Severa was hurt at all when Camilla found her, then Camilla was going to hunt down the bastard responsible for hurting her—human _or_ monster—and make them pay.

But first, Camilla had to find her.

The hallway was empty for the moment, which was a rare thing in these parts, so Camilla didn’t let the chance slide by. She scooted past the abandoned nurses station and stepped over the fragments of a shattered mug that had once held coffee. She didn’t let her eyes linger on anything for too long. If it wasn't a clue regarding Severa's whereabouts, it was better not to look.

It had taken hours, but she had systematically worked her way through half of the hospital. The map on the ground floor had said the surgical center was located on the top floor. The nurse had said Severa was being prepped for surgery, but Severa had been waiting on the second floor when Camilla had left her. Camilla had no idea whether Severa had ever made it to surgery or not, nor if she had started searching for Camilla during the chaos on her own. So Camilla had been systematically taking the hospital floor by floor in hopes of stumbling upon her. If she went floor by floor, she minimized the chance of them missing each other.

So far, no dice. Some of the rooms Camilla searched held nothing. Some of them held things she would have rather not have seen. Some of the rooms were barricaded too well to enter, but when Camilla banged on the doors, nobody answered on the other side. Perhaps they were too scared. Perhaps they couldn’t answer at all.

The locked rooms were the ones that Camilla desperately hoped didn’t hold Severa on the other side.

Like the room closest to the nurse’s station. Droplets of blood trailed from a chair behind the station to a patient’s room. A bloody palm print was smeared against the doorknob. Camilla pulled her long sleeve over her hand so she wouldn't touch the blood directly and tried the door anyway.

It didn’t budge.

Agitated at finding yet another dead end, she blew a lock of hair out of her face and moved on, searching for the next room. She was nearly finished with the third floor. It had been a while since she’d run into any undead, but that didn’t mean they weren’t lurking around. She had fought off two so far, but she didn’t want to try her luck a third time. Not until she found Severa.

She couldn’t help but think about how they had ended up in this mess as she searched the remaining rooms.

Regret and guilt had laced themselves around Camilla’s heart like chains. Severa had been admitted to the hospital for something small. It had been at Camilla’s insistence. A bit of fever and a little dehydration that had gotten out of hand. Nothing too serious. Camilla had never regretted making sure her loved ones took care of themselves before, but in this one case, she’d make an exception.

Because she’d left Severa's room for ten minutes to grab a coffee from the vending machine. Just ten minutes, if even that.

It was in that time that a nurse had walked up to her, flustered, saying they were prepping Severa for surgery.

Camilla had dropped the can of coffee in surprise. It had bounced off the tile and rolled down the hall, but neither she nor the nurse had looked at it.

“Surgery?” Camilla had said in disbelief. It had almost seemed funny. “No, you must be mistaken. She doesn’t need that.”

She had just seen Severa not a few minutes before. Had stroked Severa's hand, careful of the IV, and talked to her, even. But the nurse had just shaken her head at Camilla, looking even more flustered.

“I’m sorry, but—”

The nurse’s eyes had gone wide, staring at something over Camilla’s shoulder. Pain blossomed on the back of Camilla’s skull. She cried out, stumbling forward, and the pain had come again before she could react. Her memory ended there.

She had woken up again exactly where she had passed out, the back of her skull throbbing. Some kind of wet smacking sound filled the room. Camilla had gingerly touched the sizable bump on the back of her head and hissed. Eventually, her vision focused.

When she’d looked around, she’d noticed the lobby was mostly empty and the lights were out. No more daylight streamed through the front windows. She only had a few pale emergency lights to see by. A quick search for her phone showed it was missing. No flashlight.

As her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she saw that she wasn’t alone. There was one other person in the lobby, tucked away between one row of waiting chairs and another. Camilla had crawled closer, something instinctual inside her telling her not to speak just yet.

And when she got close enough to see clearly, she realized that the smacking sounds she heard where actually the wet crunch of a person actually _eating_ another.

Eating a dead person.

Though the one doing the eating hadn’t looked very much alive either.

Camilla had hastily hidden herself from view.

That had been hours ago.

Now, Camilla had worked her way up to the third floor in her sweeping search for Severa. She sported a few new bumps and bruises aside from the one on her head. She’d skinned her palms well enough that it still stung when she flexed her fingers, and she’d scraped her knee so badly that she could feel blood running down her leg under her jeans. Her platform sandals hadn’t exactly been made for running. A break sounded pretty good right about now.

But Camilla wouldn’t rest until she found Severa, so she kept moving.

The next room she tried to enter was labeled _Break Room_. On the other side of the door, somebody groaned like they were injured and couldn't keep quiet about it. It was a muffled sound.

Sounds like that could have meant a great many things—other survivors, a monster, _Severa_.

Camilla’s heart skipped an anxious beat. She mentally steeled herself just as she had the hundred times before, but there was no question about who she truly wished to find on the other side.

She carefully tested the handle and found it unlocked. That also could have meant a great many things. Too many things to simply guess. So she decided to save her time now and instead opened the door as quietly as she could, peering into the break room.

A shaded window sat in the far wall, but no light shone through the blinds. It was still night. Camilla could only barely see the woman crumpled over the arm of the couch, head dangling off the side like a teen who had collapsed in a huff. It was a familiar splay of limbs, even if the blood spilling down the side of the couch and pooling along the floor was new. Another low groan left the woman’s mouth.

 _Severa,_ Camilla thought. Her breath caught.

She stepped into the room.

That one step was as far as she got before she realized the figure laying across the couch obviously wasn’t Severa at all. The long hair, the obscured face, the height—Camilla had mistaken a stranger for her girlfriend under the influence of darkness and hope.

But by then it was too late. The figure—whoever they were—heard Camilla’s gasp. The woman lifted her head up from the side of the couch, hair falling away from her face as she stared right at Camilla.

No. She wasn’t Severa at all.

Camilla was grateful. Because she never wanted to see Severa in the state this woman was in.

The woman’s hands slipped against the arm of the couch as she pushed herself up. Her head bobbed unsteadily, and she stared at Camilla with glazed eyes. When she raised herself up far enough, Camilla could see that the woman’s shirt was practically in tatters. A gaping hole sat in the center of the woman’s chest. Congealed blood stained skin and cloth alike. The wound was too dark and bloody to make out all the details, but for a split second, Camilla thought—

The woman moaned again, and this time Camilla heard the sound for what it truly was. Inhuman.

Something had found this woman long before Camilla had. There was nothing to be done for her now.

The undead woman pushed herself off the couch and onto the floor with clumsy fingers, still reaching for Camilla, but Camilla was already hastily backing away. She shut the door firmly behind her.

Camilla quickly put space between her and the break room. It would take a moment for the zombie to rise up and open the door, assuming it had enough coordination to do that at all, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

She wasn’t entirely helpless. She didn’t have a weapon, but she’d fight with her bare fists if it came down to it. She had before. It was better to avoid a fight she if could, however.

Though Camilla was swiftly running out of other options. When she strained her ears, she could still hear breathy, guttural moans coming from the other side of the door. The undead woman was still up and moving. But that wasn’t the only sound Camilla heard.

New footsteps now echoed down the once silent hallway, coming from a direction Camilla had already checked. She whipped her head around, peering down the green-tinged hallway. Whatever the creature was, they weren’t close enough for Camilla to see in full detail just yet.

But she saw the way the dark figure swayed at the end of the hall, its gait uneven, its head bobbing as it moved. Camilla had already searched those halls. Nobody had been left alive down there. And while she’d thought the few dead she’d come across had truly been _dead_ , clearly she’d been mistaken.

She had to make a decision, fast.

At least two creatures were on the prowl now. They knew Camilla was on their floor. There was no telling if any more monsters were also lurking in one of the closed rooms Camilla had yet to search, nor if any more of the “dead” bodies she’d passed earlier had gotten up like the one slowly but surely making its way down the hall.

Severa was still in the hospital somewhere. Camilla knew she had to be. She just didn’t know if it was better to search the remainder of the floor in a haste, dodging danger all the while, or to try her luck on the next floor instead. If the fourth floor proved just as fruitless, she could come back down to search for Severa later.

A wrong choice could have meant the end of either of them.

Camilla bit the inside of her cheek, heart pounding.

Now halfway down the hall, the undead creature ambling towards her bumped into an abandoned gurney. The squeal of the gurney’s wheels was sharp as an arrow in Camilla's ears. The creature stumbled but didn’t fall.

It was _big_.

There wasn’t enough time. Camilla made a split-second decision.

“Severa!” she called out, dropping all pretenses of stealth.

There was no reply except for the slamming of a body against the break room door. It didn’t give, but Camilla clenched her fists anyway.

“Severa!” she yelled again.

The door rattled again. The zombie coming down the hall groaned the same way they all did.

If Severa was somewhere on the third floor still, she couldn’t hear Camilla. Otherwise she would have answered. Logic said that Severa was more likely on the fourth floor by this point—that she had made it to the surgery center after all—but Camilla still hoped to whatever force in the universe that was listening that if Severa was on the third floor after all, she was tucked away safe somewhere for Camilla to find her later.

Camilla made a break for the stairs.

It wasn’t really necessary to run. The undead weren’t particularly fast. But she wanted as much distance between her and the creatures anyway, so Camilla listened to every squeak of her sandals against the tile before she threw open the door to the stairwell.

The stairs were concrete, and the undead climbed about as well as they walked. Camilla had found that out early on. Still, she jogged up to the fourth floor, legs burning with exertion after having spent hours searching without a single break, and vowed not to slow until she found somewhere safe.

Then she threw open the door to the fourth floor, ready to begin the search anew.

Severa went stumbling back from the door in surprise. Her eyes were wide, her hair tied back in a low ponytail, and she wore an ill-fitting t-shirt that Camilla had never seen before. It took a moment for Camilla to even recognize her.

When she did, Camilla felt herself stare back with an identical expression of shock.

Severa was _alive_.

“ _Severa_ ,” Camilla breathed, forgetting entirely about the monsters still lurking down below. Relief flooded her veins.

She threw her arms around her girlfriend and pulled Severa close to her chest. All that time spent wandering around on other floors, and Severa had been here this whole time. Camilla had wasted so much time in her decision to be thorough.

Severa squeaked as her face landed in Camilla’s shoulder. Camilla didn’t plan on letting go any time soon.

“Oh, Severa,” she sighed again. “Are you alright? Are you hurt? I’m sorry it took so long to find you. This place is just dreadful.”

That was an understatement, but Camilla was more preoccupied with the relief of finding Severa than with complaining just yet. There would be more than enough time for that later. She nuzzled her cheek against the top of Severa’s head, not caring that Severa's hair seemed like it needed a wash.

Severa smelled a bit like blood, Camilla noted. But after so long spent in the hospital, she imagined herself smelling much the same.

When Severa wriggled in Camilla’s grasp, Camilla had to force herself to let her go.

Severa leaned back, looking up at Camilla’s face, and Camilla caught her by the shoulders.

“Camilla?” Severa’s eyebrows furrowed. “You’re here?”

Camilla frowned. “Of course I am. Don't you remember? Do you still have a fever?”

She laid the back of her hand against Severa’s forehead, but the skin felt cool to the touch. Her frown deepened.

Severa leaned away, dislodging Camilla’s hand. Camilla loosely took her by the shoulders again. She waited for Severa to say something more, but the air between them felt stilted. Awkward, almost. Why hadn’t Severa hugged her back yet?

Instead of throwing herself back against Camilla, Severa’s eyelids fluttered. With confusion? Camilla couldn’t be sure.

Before she could ask about it, Severa shook her head. “You can’t be here.”

“What are you talking about?” Camilla remembered how out of it Severa had been on the way to the hospital, how she’d barely opened her eyes for the whole ride over. “Don’t you remember how we got here? Who _I_ am?”

Her last question felt almost more frightening than the creatures wandering the halls, but thankfully Severa shook her head again. She sported a familiar scowl, though it wasn’t face Camilla had often seen directed at herself before.

“No, I—I remember that.” Severa nervously looked down the hall. Camilla followed her gaze, but there was nobody there. “I mean, you can’t be _here_. In this hospital.”

“Of course not,” Camilla agreed. “Now that I’ve found you, we’re both getting out of here as soon as possible. Come on, the stairs are clear for now.”

She took Severa by the wrist and tried to guide her into the stairwell, but Severa kept her feet firmly planted on the floor. Camilla dropped her arm in surprise.

“Severa?”

Severa anxiously looked down the hall again. “I can’t—We shouldn’t—”

“What?” Camilla took a step closer. She stopped, hurt, when Severa took a step back. “What are you talking about? Dear, we have to _leave_.”

Severa grabbed her temples, mouth twisting. “You don’t understand. Camilla, I don’t remember how we got here or what’s happened or what—”

She didn’t finish. She swallowed her words, face screwed up like she tasted poison. Camilla thought she might wobbled on her feet.

Worried but not wanting to show it, Camilla made soothing sounds, taking Severa into her arms once more. This time Severa leaned against her. Camilla’s heart felt full and heavy in her chest.

“Shh,” she whispered, stroking Severa’s head gently. “It’s alright. We can sit for a moment and talk. Is there some place safe we can go?”

Nowhere felt truly safe, but after a moment Severa nodded and stepped back. This time Camilla let her go. She was surprised no monster had caught up to them already.

Severa led her into the room next door. It was labeled a changing room. As expected, there were lockers and benches lining the walls. Another row of lockers were planted in the center of the room. A bundle of soiled clothes had been pushed into the corner. Camilla quietly took note of it all. A lone crutch had been placed on the bench in front of the mirror.

Once the door was locked, Camilla sat down on one of the benches and relished the thanks her tired legs sent her in return. She patted the seat next to her.

“Come on,” she said gently. “Lay your head in my lap.”

Severa did not lay her head in Camilla’s lap, but she did sit down. Camilla turned in her seat to face her, and Severa buried her face into Camilla’s shoulder.

Camilla kissed the top of Severa’s head and laid a comforting hand on her back. “You’re shaking.”

When Severa didn’t reply immediately, Camilla continued, “Don’t worry, darling. I’m sorry I took so long, but I’m here now. We’re getting out of this place together. I’ll protect you always. Have no fear.”

It was a while before either of them spoke again. Camilla stroked Severa’s back while she waited for her girlfriend to calm down.

Severa must have been so scared without Camilla there by here side, Camilla thought, humming under her breath. Thank goodness Camilla had found her now. Whatever she needed, Camilla would give it to her.

Finally, Severa shifted against Camilla’s shoulder. She didn’t lift her head, and her voice was small when she said, “Camilla?”

Camilla stopped humming. “Yes?”

“How did we get here?”

Severa’s fever might have broken by this point, but it was no wonder her memories from before were fuzzy. She had been sick when the chaos had started, and there was no telling what had happened between then and now. Camilla would explain what she could, even if she had a few blanks to fill in herself.

“You were sick,” Camilla explained gently. “You had a high fever, and it made me worried. So I took you here. But then something terrible happened.”

She felt Severa swallow. “What was it?”

Camilla sighed. “I don’t know. Something unnatural. I’m sure we’re all anyone outside can talk about.” Assuming there was an outside at all. Camilla didn’t want to think about that possibility until she knew for sure, however, so she continued, “I don’t know what you’ve seen so far, but the dead are up and walking around again.”

Severa nodded. “I saw.”

Camilla’s hand stilled briefly before continuing to stroke Severa’s back. The thought of any of those disgusting monsters laying a single finger on Severa while Camilla wasn’t around made her angry.

But it was all right now, she told herself. They weren’t going to be separated again.

“Then you know about as much as I do,” Camilla replied. “There are monsters out there, but they aren’t unstoppable. They’re not fast. They’re certainly not smart. They move on instinct, but we have the advantage of brains. Give it a few days, and they’ll be too rotten to even move, I’m sure.”

She put her fingers under Severa’s chin and lifted her head up. Severa averted her eyes, but Camilla kept looking at her as she spoke. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll be right beside you every step of the way, alright?”

“I…”

Severa opened her mouth and then closed it again, as though rethinking her words. Camilla kissed her forehead.

When she pulled back, Severa didn’t look any more encouraged. If anything, she almost looked worse.

“Camilla,” Severa said. She paused, seemingly steeling herself. “I have to tell you something."

 

"Okay," Camilla said. "So tell me."

But Severa didn't say anything immediately. It was so unlike her to be at a loss for words. Camilla didn’t know if it was the whole situation getting to her or if it was something specific. All she could do was wait.

“I woke up on the operation table,” Severa finally said, voice choked. “I didn’t remember how or why I got there, so I just started looking for a way out. I ran into a guy who I thought was a person, but he was really _dead_ , and then—"

“Oh, honey, I _know_ ,” Camilla said, but Severa was already shaking her head again.

“No, you _don’t_ know,” she retorted, some strength returning to her voice. She took her hand out of Camilla’s and scooted back. Tears had gathered in the corner of her eyes, but when Camilla opened her mouth to speak, Severa barreled over her words. “You _can’t_ know because _I_ didn’t know. And now it's—"

Severa cut herself off. A fat tear rolled down her face, but her teeth were gritted and her shoulders squared. She looked ready for a fight. Camilla stared at her, lips parted in surprise, but she didn't seem to notice.

“Severa,” Camilla said carefully, “you’re scaring me.”

“ _I’m_ scared!” Severa said. She either didn’t notice or didn’t care about how much noise she was making. “You shouldn’t be here!”

Camilla's brow furrowed. “You’re talking nonsense—”

“Just _listen_ to me!” Severa nearly shouted. She scrubbed at her face with the back of her hand angrily. “You think this is _easy_? It’s not! But you have to get out of here, and I have to stay, okay? So just go.”

“ _Why_?” Camilla snapped, patience finally breaking.

“Because of this!”

In a flash, Severa was up and off the bench. She grabbed the hem of her shirt and lifted, whipping it against one of the lockers the moment she was free. She spun towards Camilla, arms wide.

“See?”

And as Severa stood there, bare from the waist up, Camilla finally saw what had Severa so frightened.

A bloody hole sat just off center of Severa's chest. It was about the size of Camilla’s fist and looked just as deep. Even a child would have known that someone with a hole that size should never have been up and walking around on their own. Camilla thought most people with an injury that bad never got up again to begin with.

Sickeningly, she was reminded of the undead woman from the break room she had outrun just moments before.

Severa was pale, yes. She looked tired and felt cool to the touch. Yet she was still walked and talked and looked like the woman Camilla had fallen in love with. She wasn't like those monsters outside. She couldn't have been.

The hole in Severa’s chest said otherwise.

Camilla could see the jagged tips of bone— _ribs_ , her mind supplied—peeking through the old blood and viscera. It seemed as though someone had simply wrenched her ribs aside in an effort to reach the place where Severa’s heart should have been. It was an awful, awful sight.

Did Severa still have a heart? Camilla’s mind raced. She didn’t know. Rational thought said yes, of course Severa still had to have one, and yet—

The woman from the third floor—

Camilla had seen the shape of the window right through her—

“Do you get it now?” Severa spat. Tear tracks ran down her cheeks. “You have to _go_. This isn’t for you. This place is for the dead, and I—”

She choked on a sob.

Just like that, Camilla’s heart broken for a second time in as many minutes.

“Oh, _Severa_.”

Voice thick with tears, Severa said, “You—”

She couldn’t finish.

Camilla stood up and reached out.

Severa fought. It wasn’t unexpected.

“Stop!” Severa shoved at her shoulders as Camilla drew near. “What are you doing?”

Despite the flailing, Camilla caught Severa’s arms with her own. She was taller and broader than Severa, and though Severa was no pushover either, she was obviously drained in more ways than one. It wasn't long before the fight drained out of her as well. Camilla crushed Severa against her chest as soon as she went limp.

“What’s _wrong_ with you?” Severa asked roughly between sniffles, arms trapped between their chests. “You have eyes, don’t you? I’m a _monster_. I'm just like them. I’m—”

“Stop,” Camilla said firmly.

Surprisingly, Severa did.

Camilla sucked in a sharp breath. Severa still smelled like blood, but this time the scent was stronger. Now Camilla knew why.

Hot anger coursed through her veins like magma. She barely kept it together.

She needed to be strong.

For Severa.

“Who did this?” Camilla asked, voice deadly even.

Severa struggled against her weakly, but it seemed mostly for show this time.

“I don’t _know_ ,” she said pitifully. “I told you, I woke up on that operating table—I didn’t see until later—”

“Can you feel it?” Camilla asked with urgency. “Does it hurt?”

The questions made Severa go slack in her arms once more. She wasn’t unconscious; Camilla knew that much, even if she couldn’t tell if Severa was breathing or not.

She started determinedly at their reflections in the mirror—Severa’s back and her front—until Severa answered.

“No,” Severa said weakly. “Not really. I didn’t even realize it was there until…”

Once more, Camilla noted the dirty hospital gown in the corner. She could piece it together from there.

She didn’t realize how quiet she had become until Severa tested the waters with a soft, “Camilla?”

Her voice was nervous. Camilla snapped back to reality and squeezed Severa reassuringly.

Severa made a broken sound.

“I’ll kill them,” Camilla said without thinking. As the words left her mouth, she realized they were true. She had never known something with this much certainty before. “The doctors, those monsters—I’ll kill them all.”

“What?”

Camilla wrenched back from Severa, anger getting the best of her for a moment. She didn’t let Severa go. She grabbed Severa’s hands again, squeezing so tightly it had to be painful. But Severa didn’t make a sound; she just stared back at Camilla, face twisted with sorrow but gaze unwavering.

Some of Severa’s blood might have rubbed off onto Camilla’s own blouse while Camilla had held her, but Camilla didn’t bother to check. She didn’t care.

“I’m going to kill them,” Camilla said, voice steely. Every word was another axe she was going to use to chop off those monster’s heads—the doctors and undead alike. “We _are_ getting out of here, Severa. _Both_ of us. So you'd better drop that nonsense about me leaving you behind right now. Do I make myself clear?”

Seemingly starstruck, Severa nodded.

“Good.” Camilla nodded back. “And then I’m going to kill every bastard who ever touched you.”

She kept her gaze locked with Severa so Severa knew she was serious.

Fresh tears gathered in the corner of Severa’s eyes. The hole in her chest didn’t disappear.

Severa’s chin trembled.

“Camilla,” she said, “you don’t have to—"

Camilla took Severa’s face into her hands and kissed her.

“I’m going to,” she said as she broke the kiss. Severa cried. “And we’re getting out of here.”

Nothing could sway her now—not doctors, not monsters, and not the devil himself. Not when Severa made faces like that. Camilla’s own heart would beat steadily enough for the both of them.

She had come too far to take no for an answer.

**Author's Note:**

> MAJOR SPOILERS & TRIGGER WARNINGS, as promised at the top:
> 
> \- Hospitals: This fic is set in one. I take a lot of liberties with this.  
> \- Vomiting: Occurs once at the start of the fic and does not happen again after. Not described in too much detail, though stated to happen.  
> \- Blood and Gore: Zombies are dead people and described as such. There are two major chest injuries described in this fic. Blood is described often. Bone is mentioned twice. There is one occurrence of a head injury, resulting in brief unconsciousness. There is a second occurrence of a head injury that was implied to have lead to death in an unnamed, minor character. The most major injury is described at the end of the fic. Additionally, one character also slips in a puddle of what is not explicitly stated to be, but is later presumed to be, some kind of bio-hazardous material.  
> \- Cannibalism/Zombie Cannibalism: A zombie is stated to be eating a person at one point. Not described in much detail and the scene is very brief (a handful of sentences at most), but still be aware. (If you need to know where to skip, you may read up to "She had woken up again exactly where she had passed out, the back of her skull throbbing," and you may begin reading again at "That had been hours ago."  
> \- Major Character Injury: See "Blood and Gore."  
> \- Mild Memory Loss: The fic opens up with a character who has lost their short term memory as to how they have ended up where they have. They remember who they are and all other major facts; they just don't remember how they got there. Their memory of who might have accompanied them there is also fuzzy. Another character briefly worries these memory troubles are worse than they actually are.  
> \- Body Horror/Non-Consensual Body Modification: (MOST MAJOR SPOILERS HERE) One character suffers a major chest injury from a surgery they did not consent to, resulting in an open wound on their chest. This is described in mild to intermediate detail, depending on your tastes. An organ (their heart) is speculated to be missing. This injury is one of two to mention bone. The character is conscious and does not feel this major injury (and is unaware of it at first), but it is speculated that they should not be alive because of its severity. 
> 
> I hope these warnings served you well! If you decide not to read this fic because of them, that's completely understandable! Safety first! If you did read this fic and enjoyed it, please leave a comment below! Or feel free to hit me up on my [tumblr!](http://someobscurereference.tumblr.com/)
> 
> I stressed over what kind of horror fic to write for a long time. I like ghosts and haunted houses a lot, but I worried any horror fic set in a house would come across as too similar to "Dark Things Grew." So I compromised with this instead. I would still like to do another spooky house setting though. Or perhaps some kind of haunted camp? Hmm.
> 
> This fic was directly inspired by that one chapter of Corpse Party: Dead Patient that I saw in 2013 and never saw again after. A lot of the material is clearly drawn from that game, however. This is not a very original fic. (Do be warned that Corpse Party is a rather graphic series if you plan on checking it out, however.)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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